The Copy Ninja and His Conscience
by GDYRISAA
Summary: Kakashi is married. That's right, married to a woman known as The Leaf's Conscience. Curious? Don't worry, we'll get there, but you have to start at the beginning. Rewritten, told mostly from Kakashi's point of view.
1. Origins

It was the pain in his eye- and a half-hearted lecture from Rin- that had sent a newly pubescent Kakashi Hatake to the Konoha hospital despite his usual reluctance to seek medical treatment.

The continued raging of the Third Great Ninja War meant that the Konoha Hospital dealt with hundreds of causalities every day. For something non-life-threatening, Kakashi had been shunted to a small room at the end of the hall. There were four other people in the janitorial closet sized room. The man across from him had a broken leg, and the woman in the opposite corner had a gash on her arm.

Beside him was a young girl that looked around his age, maybe a little younger. She didn't appear to be a shinobi or an academy student, and he hadn't seen her around here before so he assumed she was new to the village. That was what made him pay more attention to her. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing wrong with her; that was until she opened her mouth to reveal that the front portion of her tongue had all but been entirely severed from her mouth. The medic-nin reattached the girl's tongue with minimal difficulty. He informed her that it would leave a scar and be sore, that it would heal better if she ate only liquids, and that she should avoid talking for a week. Most importantly, he assured her that it would heal.

Mulling over recent events, he watched absently with his good eye as the medic-nin proceeded to ask the girl a series of yes or no questions. He absorbed the information subconsciously, even as he was mentally trying to remove the image of his crushed subordinate from his mind. If he even so much as blinked he was reminded of his failure as a team leader. It haunted his every dream in what one could loosely call "sleep". He had treated _him_ terribly. He had been a terrible leader and brother-in-arms. Despite all that, his comrade had died and given Kakashi his _eye._

The gist of what the medic-nin had discovered was simple: A Konoha shinobi had taken the girl from her village, presumably out of pity, and had brought her here to the Hidden Leaf Village, to at least treat her tongue. However, upon finding that the small child was not a member of the village, the medic-nin had no choice but to send her away as she did not have a guardian to sign the form, agreeing to be responsible for her. Konoha had heightened restrictions on citizenship, as the War had left behind a great many ninja orphans and the village was in no hurry to take in another mouth to feed. At this point a normal child would have burst into tears by now, but not her. She seemed very…emotionless about the whole thing.

She already had a skill needed to become a shinobi, and she was also a war orphan much like him. Of course, her resolve was breaking down. He could see it; she was losing her ability to appear unperturbed by the current happenings. Perhaps this would lead her to make better decisions; something he failed to do. Maybe by signing the form for her, he could ease some of this guilt…and finally get some real sleep.

"On a scale from 1-10, how much pain do you feel? Are you able to see alright? It's been three days since the transplant; any initial complications should be healed by now, but it will still be sensitive and you may have trouble deactivating the doujutsu. Tomorrow you can officially take the bandage off." The medic-nin had moved on to Kakashi now, asking about his eye as he slowly prepared to shine a light into the new organ before he rewrapped it.

Three days? Had it really been three days? It felt like a year, or one never-ending day; he couldn't decide. How had it been three days? That number didn't fit at all! Where was Rin? Was Rin alright? When was the last time he had even seen Rin? _Focus. _He needed to distract himself, preferably with something real and visible.

The girl was slowly starting to move from the table, her once white dress dragging over the examination table as she slid down to the ground. She seemed bruised and sore from the way her movements dragged, and she favored her right side as to her left.

"I'll sign it," Kakashi declared blatantly, half hoping to distract the doctor in the process. He didn't want eye drops. He didn't like people poking, prodding, or sticking things anywhere near his personage, let alone his sore eye. It worked. The medic blinked and then his face briefly morphed into shock, but he decided it would be best to get the form before Kakashi changed his mind. He felt awful for the young child, but had no interest in adding the child's potential danger onto his responsibilities list. Quickly bringing back the form with a pen for Kakashi, he handed over the paper for him to sign. He scanned it briefly, and then leaned the paper up against the wall to sign his name. Kakashi returned the form to the medic-nin who then took it away for filing.

The medic-nin quickly finished patching up Kakashi's eye, telling him to come back tomorrow for some antiseptic eye drops to make sure it didn't get infected. He sent the little girl out with Kakashi. Kakashi rolled his eyes at the man. He was too selfish to take in the child, but still felt so bad that he was willing to push the small girl off on any other kid who came along. It was pathetic. Kakashi had no intention of actually taking full responsibility for her. He wasn't going to care for her, but he would most certainly kill her without hesitation if she turned out to be a spy for another village.

When he got outside he turned to her and said "I suggest finding somewhere to sleep for the night. You'll be able to talk to the Hokage about registering for the Academy tomorrow. He lives in that building over there." Kakashi pointed out the Hokage Tower. The girl nodded, still trying to keep any emotion from her eyes as she put her hands together and bowed, a gesture that would normally go along with a 'Thank you'. As Kakashi watched the young girl walk away though, he couldn't shake the feeling this was going to come back to bite him.

**AN: A big thank you to my lovely beta librastar, who agreed to take on the story 38,000 words in and help me overhaul it entirely. **


	2. Backlash

It took exactly 48 hours for his one act of guilt-inspired kindness to come back and bite him. He had meant what he said about her becoming a shinobi and registering for the Academy as a suggestion, not an order. Apparently, the girl had actually gone to the Hokage to ask about becoming a shinobi, but it was made difficult by her inability to speak. At least, that was what Minato told him when he was getting lectured.

The thing was, Kakashi knew she could speak. She had just been told to avoid it. The entire time his sensei's scolding passed through his ears, he had pondered this. Sure, she could have avoided speaking out of pain, but even if she had been given medications, they wouldn't have been strong enough to do much besides dull the pain. That would mean she had a high pain tolerance, nullifying the argument. Point being, if she was not speaking, it was by choice.

At first, the guards at the door would not let in the disheveled, mute girl-for fairly obvious reasons. But instead of leaving, her response had been to sit across from the large doors in the hall for a good 12 hours until the guards took her out of the building kicking and screaming bloody murder. She kept coming back though, so by the next day, the Hokage simply told them to let her in.

Upon being asked why she wasn't speaking in the middle of an incredibly uncomfortable game of charades, the child had stuck out her recently mutilated tongue as an excuse; it was a crappy one in Kakashi's opinion. From there, it had been simple enough to find the paper for the little girl, which declared Kakashi as her guardian. Being busy and not having time to lecture a thirteen year-old on responsibilities that he was far too young to handle, Sarutobi passed the information onto Minato. Which was how he ended up here.

Kakashi was promptly lectured and forced to bring the child back to his studio apartment. He found it irritating to say the least, but he had dug his own grave. He signed that form for her on his own free will, so now he had to take care of her. But he didn't want to take her home; aside from taking up space, having a roommate or a dependent, as the case may be, would only make everything ten times more difficult. How was he supposed to care for someone else? He could barely take care of himself as it was. He couldn't even keep his comrades alive, even though he had been their leader. The only option he could see was to treat her like he would treat himself.

Kakashi led her inside, noticing that she wasn't wearing any shoes. She stood off to the side a bit, unsure of what to do with herself. Not wearing shoes defeated the purpose of taking your shoes off in the first place, the practical idea being not to get dirt on the floor. In fact, she had dirt all over her entire body and there were bloodstains on her once white dress, but at least she wasn't wet. He motioned her inside anyway; it wasn't like he cared because he frequently brought blood and dirt into the apartment himself.

"Make yourself comfortable, you'll be sleeping on the couch," he told her simply. She nodded, and moved to sit on the couch. The apartment was small and plain. There was a rarely-used bathroom and a pitifully bare kitchen. There was a bookshelf and an empty desk on one side. There were no books on the book shelf yet; it was mostly used as a bedside table containing a downturned photo of Team Minato and a glass of water. The couch was in the middle of the living room, navy in color, and his bed with white sheets and a shuriken print blanket. "I'll help you talk to the Hokage tomorrow," he told her dismissively before leaving the apartment again.

For the rest of the evening, the girl did nothing until Kakashi got home, which was around nightfall; besides sit curled into a ball on the couch. When he entered his apartment, he noted how she curled up tighter when he got within a good five feet of her.

Later that evening, while making an effort to go to sleep, he couldn't help but be kept on edge by her staring at him constantly. By now she looked almost like a zombie with her too skinny body, pale complexion, and sleepless eyes. At one point during the night, he was fairly certain that she had gone to the bathroom and had maybe passed out there for about 3 hours. Then she was awake again. It was clear his first strategy wasn't going to work. He would have to do something about this or he would never sleep again.


	3. How to Train Your Stray Child

Kakashi woke in a cold sweat, breathing heavily as the cheery sunshine leaked through his windows. He didn't want to admit that his sleeping problems may have been largely attributed to the nightmares that plagued him rather than his forced companion, so he merely pushed the thought away. For a few moments he kept his eyes shut, trying to calm himself before he started the day. He needed a distraction again, and the rustling of a body on his couch reminded him he actually had one.

The Hokage would be angry with Kakashi if the girl came to him looking as she was, and he decided to give it another day to try and make her less…sickly looking. He had another few days off because of his injury, to which he was supposed to be consistently applying eye drops, but he could only be bothered to do so maybe twice a day. He scratched his head. How did one go about making someone less sickly looking in this situation? It was clear his first plan was not going to work. He couldn't leave her to her own devices and expect her to care for herself.

He thought for a moment, trying to come up with a new strategy. He had a general idea of how to take care of normal people and small children, but this girl was neither. She did not behave like a normal person. She couldn't speak, was not very emotional, and she didn't take care of herself. He couldn't treat her like he treated himself or other people. Continuing his thought process, he likened her behavior to that of a dog. Once he had read a book on how to take care of a dog at the library, as he had always liked dogs and thought that one day he would get a dog of his own.

Dogs needed a lot of attention, sometimes fought with each other over dominance (though this girl didn't seem the type), and could be very dangerous if not properly trained. They needed food, water, and a place to sleep, like people did. Some dogs did not like loud noises, and it seemed this girl didn't either. Those dogs were usually scared very easily and could lash out and attack you if you frightened them.

Considering he would need to give her a bath so that she would smell decent and look presentable for the Hokage, it was important not to scare her. He knew he could take out a pre-Genin easily, but he would get yelled at again and he didn't want to have to deal with that. To make sure a dog wouldn't attack you, you had to have its trust. The best way to gain a dog's trust was to feed them, and then approach slowly. He didn't have any food so he decided to try bringing her back breakfast.

When was the last time she had eaten? It had to have been at least 24 hours, and it was likely to have been two days. She could only have liquids, so he would just go pick up some soup and give her a rations pill. Though the rumor was that eating too many of them could cause problems later in life, but it seemed that not eating at all was a more urgent issue. At least this way he could ensure that even if she didn't eat for the next three days it would be alright.

"I'm going out to grab some food for us, don't go anywhere," Kakashi was surprised when she flinched at his voice, flailing in a manner that was mildly comical to the ninja. She remained motionless until Kakashi was already halfway to the door. Slowly the girl sat up and nodded at him. At least she was responsive.

It took him half an hour to buy two bowls of miso soup from a shop. It was not unusual for Kakashi to eat out. The shopkeeper knew him by name, but was surprised when he picked up two portions rather than his usual single serving.

As he haphazardly banged the door shut on his return, the noise scared the girl again and she flinched. It appeared she had moved to the other side of the couch, but was wary of his proximity. He walked around behind the couch, and the girl's gaze followed him. More specifically, it followed the food. It appeared she was hungry.

Slowly, Kakashi pulled out the food. He knew ninja were often jumpy post-mission, and years of experience had taught him how to handle teammates and subordinates suffering from post-traumatic stress. Most ninja were fairly comfortable with a person being two to three feet away from them, but the 5 feet he was sitting away from her now was quite a wide berth. He managed though, placing his bowl on the floor and the girl's on the table, as well as a food pill beside it. Once he was finished he slowly backed away several paces, he motioned for her to come over and sit.

Hesitantly the girl got off the couch and took a seat on the pillow in front of the table. She sat very properly, her back stiff and straight. She was obviously a very well-mannered child, despite her scraggly appearance and this made Kakashi slightly more inquisitive about her family background. He watched to see if he would need to coax her to eat or not. Had she not eaten simply because no one had put food in front of her, or had she not eaten out of refusal? "Go on, eat."

The girl took up the bowl in her hands and delicately sipped at the broth, looking up in search of approval from Kakashi before continuing, but looking away when she realized he was about to pull down his mask. He frowned. For the past day or so, he had only seen numbness and fear from this girl, and the search for approval set him back a little. He had assumed her to be a civilian from her clothing, her general shakiness and seemingly overwhelming fear. Her emotional numbness, surprisingly muscular body, and her awareness of ninja concepts seemed to point in another direction entirely. She was not upset by the use of chakra healing; she seemed to be aware that when a ninja removed their mask it was a point of vulnerability, like removing your shirt, but without the risqué sentiment. He realized he didn't even know her name.

"What's your name?" Kakashi asked. It was a long shot in hoping she would speak, but he could try right? To his surprise the girl's eyes lit up like she knew the answer to that question. That glint was not something that existed in battle-tested shinobi. She searched for a way to say the words.

She began miming. She started with a shrug, and then wasn't sure how to continue, so she tapped on the table using her four fingers, twice. He looked confused. "What?" She nodded enthusiastically trying to let him know he had accidentally stumbled upon the right word, and tapped again so he would hopefully understand. After she had tapped about eight times and he was getting frustrated he realized that this was supposed to mean 'what'. Then she pointed to him, which was fairly obvious.

She made a cupped inward swiping motion from her bowl to herself, like she was scooping it up. "You want it?" He thought she had gotten side tracked. She nodded again completing his sentence and trying to make him pick out the right word. Pointing to herself, using the swiping motion and then pointing downwards to the food.

"If you want it you can just drink it, I already told you." Kakashi said in exasperation. She made the motion again, finally making him realize she was still trying to answer his question. "Want?" he said. She nodded moving on to finally punctuate it by miming a question mark. Kakashi was starting to enjoy this puzzling game of charades. Looking at her final hand sign he asked "is that a question mark?" and she nodded. She repeated the sentence so he could fully understand. It wasn't perfect, but it resembled something of a coherent sentence. Shrug, Four-finger-double-tap, pointing to him, swiping motion, question mark.

"I don't know what you want?" Kakashi asked to be sure of what she had said. At least, this was the literal translation. She nodded and prompted him to continue.

"I don't know, what do you want?" No, that wasn't quite right. Not in context.

"I don't know whatever you want?" This elicited a happy fist pump of victory from the not yet pre-Genin. Kakashi had to admit, he felt a bit of satisfaction at figuring out her puzzle, too. Then he processed the question and shrugged. It was certainly an odd question, but this was an odd situation.

"Well, I guess I'll call you Rina," he decided. Rina meant vegetables, and Kakashi liked vegetables. Rina also meant village, which he found fitting because the girl didn't have a known village. On top of that, the name was decidedly feminine, and he was a firm believer that girls should be given girl's names. Rina started eating again, the pair decidedly more comfortable with each other than they had been previously.

That had been the beginning of their hand sign language. To them it was both the only way for them to communicate, at least for now, but it was also quite an enjoyable game. Games were a good way to occupy himself. They kept him from thinking about his teammate. As they ate, Kakashi had managed to move closer to her, making the distance between them only an approximate 3.5 feet. This was another game for him; how close could he get to Rina? He went over his list of things to complete:

_-Bath_

_-Trust _

_-Sleep_

Bathing was going to be the next thing on his list, because she hadn't bathed in at least a week, and her hair was starting to get matted. Then she would need clothes and shoes, and he had to go to his doctor's appointment soon.

"You should take a bath," Kakashi told Rina. "I can wash your dress for you." Well, _he _couldn't wash it, but he was sure someone he knew could.

When it came to his forced companion, he found he had no idea what to do with her. He had always done things by himself. The girl was looking at him now, then referenced down to her clothes. It dawned on him then that the girl had no other clothes. He would need to get her some of her own before she started the Academy.

"You can borrow some of mine, there's a towel and a comb in there already." Kakashi told her, but his voice cracked, ruining the nonchalance of it. He mentally cursed whatever being came up with puberty before he began rifling through his drawers for something she could wear. Quickly pulling out a pair of pants and a shirt, he set them carefully on the night stand for her to take, not wanting to risk handing them to her. He sent her off into the bath with a dismissive wave. Much to his relief, she seemed to know exactly what she was doing as she drew the water for the bath, and began to remove her once white dress.

Deciding he could trust her to bathe herself, he averted his eyes and lay back on his bed. He'd go to his doctor's appointment, and then he would need to meet up with his teammates to meet whoever the Hokage chose to place on their team as a substitute for Obito. He didn't ponder over the matter, knowing that if he did stop to think that he might not be able to continue the mission. He might not even be able to bring himself to go to the meeting.

After about twenty minutes, he saw the little girl emerge from the bathroom, hair towel dried and combed, dressed in the standard Chunnin uniform minus the flak jacket and headband. The clothes fit right in terms of height but were loose around her body. Seeing her clean was a little odd to him, as he was now aware that there was a _girl _in his apartment. Rina had brown hair down to the middle of her back. Her eyes were big and green, her face was round, and she had a small button nose. Her complexion was pale, much like his. She had freckles on her chest and some scattered lightly over her face. The freckles were little light peachy ones that no doubt continued beyond where he could see.

"Now let's go buy some clothes for you," Kakashi started walking towards the door. This provoked another game of charades, the resulting question being '_Weren't we going to see the Hokage?'._

"I've decided I will be yelled at less if I wait another day so you can be more prepared." Kakashi said bluntly. So she nodded, following him as he began to walk away from her, looking for a clothing store. Finding a small shop that sold clothes, Kakashi walked in, all the while trying to decrease their distance. However, he got the same result, 3.5 feet. Any more than that and she would start acting nervous. The shop keeper looked suspiciously at the girl. It was not common to get newcomers to the village, especially ones who looked extremely out of place.

Kakashi went about looking for a dress for her to wear, ignoring the woman's looks. He had always leaned more towards traditional dressing style, which was why he'd originally chosen out a full length yukata. When he turned around he caught Rina giving him a brief 'are you kidding me?' look. She had quickly turned away, staring at the floor again when she realized he was looking, but he shrugged and put the outfit back on the rack. She had a point, she would need something she could run in easily. That was how they had settled on a blue yukata-style dress with a largely pink floral print. The skirt was knee length, but puffy, and it had a red obi that was supposed to be tied in a large bow at the back. Kakashi had no idea how to tie the band but he noted that Rina had drifted away from him and fixed the bow on the mannequin that displayed the dress, so he supposed it would be alright.

* * *

Rina was far from home; far from everything she knew. She was sore and tired, but whenever she closed her eyes she was plagued by nightmares. She was separated from her caretaker and any sort of friend she had had. Would he be angry that she had disappeared? Was he even alive anymore? There would be no more school, no more music, no more dancing. If she opened her mouth to speak the questions would start, though she fully expected now that she would get questioned anyway if this went on for too long. The safest thing here was the silver haired boy, but his headband marked him as a dangerous person.

These dangerous people were known as shinobi, and she had had them in her village too. Her caretaker had been a very important man, so rather than constantly hire ninja guards, he simply lived and conducted his affairs from inside a community of ninja; for a large sum of money of course. There was no established hidden village where she had come from, and thus there were communities in which young men and women who wanted to be ninja came to train. Because of her caretaker's money, the elders were overly kind to her, but underneath their false smiles and prattling praises she could sense that they were wary of actually interacting with her. They knew everything about her and her caretaker, but they never talked about it. Well, they talked about it a lot, but they stayed just out of earshot at all times. Their reluctance to speak to her in any genuine way made the village children dislike her. One time a kid came up to her and told her that he knew 3 ways to kill her with a spoon. That had really scared her, being able to kill someone with a spoon had seemed like the greatest accomplishment known to man at the time.

Now she was in a town full of people who probably knew _more_ than 3 ways to kill her with a spoon. But despite all the looks he was getting, the silver haired boy seemed firm in his belief that he wanted her to become a spoon-killing-person as well. Wanting her to become strong could mean one of two things: that he wanted to get rid of her, or he really had no interest in trying to hurt her. The way she saw it, if he was trying to get rid of her and she stayed out of his way, he shouldn't hurt her. The boy kept trying to get close though, and she couldn't help the way her chest tightened with fear when he did. She was trying to not let his proximity bother her. Three and a half feet was a lot of space, but she couldn't help it.

* * *

Turning around with the dress inside a shopping bag, Kakashi couldn't help but notice Rina was deep in thought. Coughing to get her attention, he declared that they had a few more errands to run. They needed to go to the weapons shop, as well as buy some groceries so she could make herself lunches. Did she know how to do that? People weren't as easy to feed as dogs, but he figured she would learn. When she startled to attention, Kakashi felt a twinge in his stomach that was surprisingly familiar, and identified as guilt. It had been showing up a lot lately, but not over trivial things like this.

* * *

She had brushed her teeth, and now had her own little night stand with her own glass of water. He had even given her a blanket and a pillow. She was sure to sleep now. However, although he had convinced her it was safe to lie down on the couch, she still had difficulty drifting off.

"Why won't you sleep?" he asked in exasperation from his place on the bed. How was he supposed to sleep when he could_ feel_ that she was awake? He moved to sit on the arm rest of the couch while she scrunched in the corner on the other side. _Three feet._ Looking at her he noted once again the only emotion she appeared to be bad at hiding, fear. He wondered whether or not this had been a good idea.

"Fine then, I'll sleep outside tonight," Kakashi said abruptly, his tone was supposed to be angry and railing, but it wasn't. "And I'll open the window in case it gets stuffy. If you need anything else, don't hesitate to say so." He grabbed his pillow, pushed open the window, before heading out into the hallway for the evening.


	4. Definitely Not Because

The next morning, Kakashi decided to go through the window into his apartment. This was just on a whim of course, not at all because he wanted to avoid scaring Rina.

The only people he cared to protect were his comrades, and even that was a newly adopted philosophy. His dead teammate's words echoed in his head, and a familiar pang of grief welled up in his heart, which he resolutely buried away. Obito. It had only been a week since he had gone, but to Kakashi it had seemed much longer than that. Though Obito had always seemed so weak, Kakashi now realized that his perpetually tardy, orange-loving teammate was wiser than he would likely ever be.

The girl-Rina was in a state of very light sleep that he had been coined 'mission sleep'. It was the kind of sleep one got when they were constantly on edge, when they did not feel safe enough allow true sleep to take over. He tried to quietly go about making Rina some morning tea and scrambled eggs- NOT because he wanted to take care of her but because he didn't want to get yelled at again. It had nothing to do with this horrible feeling of guilt and failure that ate him alive inside. It was by no means related to a desperate need for redemption.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the realization that his eggs were burning. Rina quickly woke at the smell of smoke in the apartment and upon seeing a frantic Kakashi waving clouds of black smoke away from a heavily smoking pan, she took the pan off the heat and dumped the eggs into the trash receptacle, cooling the pan down with water before setting it on the back burner.

Kakashi was a little surprised at the instinctive, instantaneous yet surprisingly _maternal_ reaction. He was glad she seemed to be warming up to him, even if the small teasing look she sent him was meant in apparent mockery of his domestic skills. She still wasn't talking but he wasn't going to push her just yet; he was enjoying this game. It briefly occurred to him that she may have become one of those war children he saw, the ones who went mute after a traumatic experience.

"I was just trying to make breakfast," he defended, a little sheepishly. _Two feet._ Two feet was good, right? That was almost the space of the desks at the Academy, and a good conversational distance. The little girl put her hands on her hips and skeptically looked him over, before pointedly moving to the fridge to pull out some more eggs.

Stepping back to give her room, he looked at her face. For some reason, she seemed quite clearly unhappy, and he didn't think it had anything to do with the pile of breakfast eggs he had just burned. While showing emotions was frowned upon, Kakashi was mostly surprised by the foreign ambiance of displeasure. Unhappiness was an elusive emotion among ninja. Among all the emotions they could show and feel, unhappiness was diluted when compared to rage and depression, and not usually worth their time of day.

He wasn't sure why Rina was unhappy though, because this morning he had felt more than confident that he had successfully completed his list of things. In the book it had said that once he had done everything on his checklist, the dog would be happy.

Bath. Check.

Trust. Check.

Sleep. Check.

So why wasn't Rina happy?

As Rina skillfully mixed the eggs and began pouring them into a newly cleaned pan, she pulled out some cheese and vegetables. Kakashi moved forward with a kunai to try and help her cut them but to his utter surprise, she jumped several feet backwards, twitching violently as if he had been a mad axe-murderer coming for her. Noting her freak out, he felt another twinge of guilt in his stomach. He needed a distraction, but he always felt worse when he did anything for her, because he always did it wrong. Just like he had on his last mission.

Kicking himself that she was probably scared stiff of knifes now after someone had probably used one to cut her tongue out, he sighed and began quickly cutting up the remainder of the vegetables. Slowly she made her way back up to the stove, her hands shaking residually.

He mumbled, "I didn't mean to freak you out…I just wanted to know why you weren't happy, I did all the things it said to in the dog training book."

* * *

_Dog-training book?_ Rina puzzled over the possibilities for a few moments. This kid, whose name she still didn't know as he hadn't introduced himself and she didn't know how to ask, appeared socially inept. As an adult, there was hope that he would grow up to become surprisingly insightful but for now it seemed he seemed both unable or unwilling to process human emotions as they were meant to be. His efforts to care for her were perfunctory at best, and he seemed continuously nervous around her.

Had he really tried to use a _dog-training book_ in order to care for her?! A small sigh tempered somewhat with amusement escaped her.

At least she could console herself that deep down, he was really trying and that she herself had not exactly helped his endeavor. It was only now that she had found the energy to move, to try and _be _again. She scrambled the eggs all together in the pan, putting in the vegetables and some cheese.

When Kakashi looked over at her she signed something that he didn't even need to puzzle over to understand. _'Well, I'm not a dog.'_

* * *

On the way to the Hokage they proceeded to work on expanding their sign language; they were starting to get fairly decent at the basics, and even Kakashi had started contributing to their pool of vocabulary, by creating a sign and assigning a word to it. If you wondered how Kakashi got _so_ fast at creating the ninja seals, years of practicing something much more complicated definitely helped.

At the Sandaime's call, Kakashi slipped down into a respectful bow. Rina knelt beside him. "Rina would like to become a pre-genin," he said simply, hoping to avoid recreating whatever had happened last time.

"I see," the Third Hokage looked down at the girl, who had since come out of her bow and into a sitting position. He noted that Kakashi had called her 'Rina'; had the girl finally told her his name or Kakashi taken it upon himself to name her? Sarutobi had received the report from the assassination team before the girl had shown up in his office, but had only found the time to read it over a couple of days ago. He had decided that the child would need to be questioned, but it was not likely she would hold anything more than fill in a few blanks in their paperwork. But he was in no rush to do so; if questioned and found to have no useful information, it was likely that the elders would demand that she be sent away. But in the midst of so much chaos after the war, it seemed cruel was something he would rather not have on his conscience or on the Leaf's reputation.

If anything, Rina becoming a pre-genin should not harm anything. As a pre-genin, she would be supervised 8 hours a day and it would continue largely through her genin years. She would not be given anything classified to deal with. She would not only add man power to the village, but until she became a chunin she would be well watched by a variety of high ranking ninja.

"I'll grant her permission then," the Hokage pulled out a pen and paper, beginning to scrawl out a crude document, assigning her an academy instructor and granting her permission despite her lack of citizenship.

Rina gave a fake smile, daring to look up at the man. The Hokage caught her glance and smiled back, trying to encourage the scared child. It was rather surprising that Rina wanted to become a pre-genin, and Sarutobi suspected it was by way of Kakashi that she had ended up here.

"Do you have a family name?" Sarutobi asked the girl gently. Rina made a series of hand signs, Kakashi glancing over and watching them. Kakashi then proceeded to translate, taking the literal meaning of the signs they knew and putting them into context.

Watching their little exchange, Sarutobi saw the bond the pair had created, albeit small one in the short space of time they had been together. Kannabi Bridge had indeed changed the young man, making him see something beyond the black and white of the ninja code and at the realization that bonds could be formed and existed beyond respect. The pair both needed a friend, and they both seemed to be at the right place at the right time to help one another.

"Rina says she was not told of her original family name," Kakashi was as surprised by this as Sarutobi was. People didn't just not have family names unless they had amnesia, though it was clear that Rina did not.

"I'll give you a list of supplies you'll need," the Hokage rifled through his drawers to pull out a supplies form, putting down the family name as 'None Given' for now. It did not seem to bother Rina, but he had a feeling it would bother plenty of other people.

"Oh, and Kakashi, these are the details for your next mission. It should span about a week." In reality, it wasn't a mission as no one was getting paid, but since they followed the same general protocol as a mission they usually just referred to it as such.

Kakashi nodded, and watched as Rina stood, her eyes were steeled over, much like they had been at the hospital. He felt like something was wrong there, but said nothing and walked out with her. Looking over the list he found that he had everything that she'd need already. He would be sure to pack it for her tonight. Only because he didn't like clutter, definitely not because he didn't want to cause her trouble. "I have all this stuff already," he told her simply, and Rina nodded.

"I'm going to get going now, I'll be home sometime after sunset, I recommend feeding yourself," with that Kakashi leapt away. On his way to run his errands he stopped by the house, quickly grabbing the white dress off the floor.

But it was because he had told Rina he would earlier, definitely not because he cared.


	5. The Academy

**AN: Alright, so this chapter is one of the few chapters that is told from Rina's POV. The first part of the story is also from Minato's POV. Please enjoy the guest appearances of young!Iruka and young!Anko, as well as young!Genma, Kotetsu, and Izumo.**

* * *

Arriving almost an hour early to the team meeting, Kakashi waited quietly; leaning up against a tree and looking down at the white dress. For most clothing items, Kakashi's general laundering skills sufficed just fine. But this was a white dress, and it showed stains very easily. Though he was pretty sure it was ruined, he figured his sensei's wife might know something about removing stains.

"You're here quite early," commented Minato, sitting in front of the young jonin. He looked Kakashi over sharply, furtively hoping to get a clue as to his state of mind. Only a couple of days ago, he had sent his traumatized student home with an unknown mute girl, who appeared to have problems of her own. His lone right eye was inscrutable and the headband tilted over the left signaled that he had had his bandages removed; but the boy looked as unflappably calm as ever.

Yet, Minato was still concerned with Kakashi's mission-readiness. After the incident at Kannabbi Bridge, he had had no time to train his new dojutsu and no matter how much of a prodigy one was, it was extremely dangerous to use an unfamiliar and unpolished technique in battle. Case in point being Kakashi's Chidori, the new technique he had been so eager to try out that had almost cost them their lives against the Iwa nin.

More worryingly, Minato remained fairly apprehensive about Kakashi's mental state. Kakashi was not one to take in random women off the street… Minato was fairly certain Rina had been taken in on a whim, yet what did that say about Kakashi's mental stability? Hatake Kakashi was not a whimsical person. Even before his father had died, he had always been a serious and calculated child. Was it safe to take him on a mission like this just yet?

Kakashi held out the dress, pushing it into his face a little bit. "I was hoping you knew how to clean this."

His worries dissipated a little at his student's evident dismay and Minato gave a chuckle. "I'll see if Kushina can do anything about it." The blonde jonin smiled to himself. Kakashi looked like he was taking care of himself just fine. Besides, if he was able to focus on the girl's laundry he could assume that Kakashi would be alright on the mission, and that the unknown girl was being cared for reasonably well.

Minato tried to pry some more information from the other ninja, turning their conversation to the little girl Kakashi had "adopted". Kakashi was reluctant to speak about anything related to emotions, but was more than willing to denote in detail the child's behaviors. He tried to pass off the whole conversation as being completely normal, though Minato easily saw through the child's guise. Minato's final piece of advice was to find something else "Rina" enjoyed doing, maybe a book, something she could do during independent study at the Academy.

Before either could push for more information from each other, Rin and a temporary replacement ninja had shown up. She greeted the boys brightly, sitting a little too close to Kakashi and shyly enquiring if he was alright. Kakashi avoided Rin's gaze like the plague. Instead, he focused his energy on appraising the other ninja- Obito's replacement. An amused smile crossed Minato's features as he took in the aloof manner of his silver-haired student. It was clear the boy was displeased by the man's rather average appearance; likely because average shinobi were usually well just… _average. _

The meeting was brief. After a short introduction to their new team member, Minato gave them all a quick overview of the mission scroll that Kakashi had been given, followed by a short discussion of strategies.

After the meeting, Minato grabbed Kakashi's arm to stop him before he left. "You know Kakashi, it wouldn't be such a bad thing if you had a friend."

Kakashi stood stock still, but his charcoal eye widened perceptibly. Without looking at his teacher, he hurried off.

Minato stared thoughtfully after him. Though he had been reassured of Kakashi's ability to complete the mission without incident, he knew Kakashi was still struggling with the loss of Obito, and he seemed to be struggling with Rin. This would be Minato's last mission with his team, as he would be stepping up as Hokage when he returned (though it had not yet been officially announced).

While Minato was proud to take over running the village so Sarutobi could retire, especially during war time where Minato's well-respected reputation would come in handy in continuing Sarutobi's semi-sucessful efforts at peace negotiations, he did not want to leave the remaining two-thirds of his non-genin squad. Now was a difficult time for them, and he struggled to grasp that he was leaving them behind at this most crucial moment in their development. The meeting had taken the "one step forward, two steps back" effect on Minato's conscience because while Rin and Kakashi mentally seemed to be coping with Obito's death, there was an obvious tension between the pair when they needed each other more than ever.

* * *

Following the first bit of advice from his mentor, Kakashi came home to Rina with a small army of objects he had bought, hoping she would find something that took her fancy.

Rina was sitting on the couch again, though it appeared she had fed herself from the washed dishes in the drying rack. Kakashi swung in through the window and set the stuff down by his bed. He decided to try something a little bit daring.

Concentrating a bit of chakra into the tip of his finger, he tapped her gently on the shoulder. At the time the chakra was largely ineffective, as she could barely sense her own chakra for the time being. However, if she knew what chakra felt like she'd be able to sense it better in the future, a skill that could allow her to detect enemies within the vicinity and potentially save her life. Flailing a little bit in shock Rina turned around, calming down when it was only Kakashi. _A foot and a half._

He was prepared to step away again, and be stared at by a trembling Rina until he forced himself to murmur something like an apology, but that wasn't what happened. Instead, she turned to look at him and patted the seat on the couch across from her. More than a little surprised, Kakashi sat in the designated spot. It was sunset now, the pink light from the open window making her face dark and obscure.

She made a series of signs to him '_What is your name?'_

"It's Kakashi, Hatake Kakashi" he told her, shocked when he realized he had never told her his name. It had already been three days.

Rina nodded, and they sat in a semi-comfortable silence for a half hour until darkness fully overtook the skyline. Finally, Kakashi decided he should say something.

"Rina, tomorrow I'll lay out your things for school on the bed. There will also be a pile of diversions, but don't pack them all. Just pick one of the smaller things." Though Kakashi thought it should have been obvious, he found himself saying the last part anyway. Getting up from the couch and running his fingers through his hair, Kakashi left the room for the evening, deciding not to push her further.

* * *

Waking up alone, Rina looked around the apartment and at the sunshine streaming through the window. There was no clock in the room, but class began at 10 am and by her judgement, she had approximately an hour to get to the Academy. She decided she wasn't particularly hungry, so she merely set about making some tea. Kakashi had lain out all her school supplies, the promised 'diversions', and an outfit complete with hair ribbons.

It took her longer than it should have to pack up her weapons, her fingers trembling as she gingerly picked up each weapon before dropping it as quick as a hot potato into her backpack; nervous to even touch the armaments. Kunai were only meant as weapons, unlike kitchen knives. Though Rina supposed the silver-haired boy had tried to use them to cut vegetables the other day. After filling the weapons bag, she secured it to her thigh underneath a couple of layers of tulle.

Next, Rina looked through the pile of assorted diversions. Though still a little shaken from handling the weapons, she couldn't shake the feeling of excitement one got whenever receiving new things. A thick _Math and Sciences _textbook, a soft blue ocarina, _Proper Young Ladies _(a dangerously pink book meant to educate teens on proper feminine behavior)_, _a sketchpad with a small handful of pens, and a book of Sudoku puzzles were each picked up and properly examined. By the time she had thoroughly browsed the items, it was time to leave so she grabbed the book of Sudoku puzzles and ran out of the apartment.

She walked into the mostly empty classroom, her heart beating just a little faster. The teacher looked up as she came in. "Hello, you must be the new student I was supposed to be getting," he smiled kindly at her. She nodded and waved at him before taking a seat at the back of the classroom, occupying herself with filling in the first puzzle in her book. She noticed one or two curious stares thrown at her bowed head, but thankfully no one made any move to talk to her.

When her classmates filed in a few minutes later, the room became very loud and noisy and she immediately wished she was back with Kakashi, who was always quiet. She found she couldn't look around enough, couldn't see the source of each and every noise, and it made her antsier than it should have. A young boy with short black hair and a bandage over the middle of his face came up to her. "You're in my seat!" he told her firmly, his tone making it clear he was expecting her to move.

Traditionally, the classrooms had been divided by grades, based on where the children were in their academic skill. Pre-genin usually graduated in Grade 8 (given that you had the necessary shinobi skills). However, that system had long been abandoned and now the half-filled classroom was filled with children whose ages ranged from 6 to 15; all of whom would graduate the moment they passed the graduation exam and were deemed worthy of advancing their career as shinobi.

"Kotetsu! Find a new seat." The sensei left little room for argument, and he was forced to find a seat away from his best friend, earning Rina a glare and a new enemy. Another child took the seat beside her, peering at her around his shaggy brown hair as if he was scrutinizing if she was clean enough or not.

The sensei then asked her to introduce herself, but when she opened her mouth to speak, her voice came out rasping and her tongue ached. She'd been too mortified to continue, and when at recess some of the cockier children had begun to mock her she hadn't been able to handle it and went back to Kakashi's apartment.

Afternoon training which involved more physical stuff such as weapons training and strength exercises, but she ended up humiliating herself by spending most of the afternoon learning to manipulate chakra for the first time, and the mockery of her classmates only increased.

So she simply stopped attending, and picked up some of her more eccentric hobbies from Kakashi's 'pile of diversions'.

By the time Rina had officially been deemed able to speak, she had come to the conclusion that the vast majority of other students did not deserve to be spoken to. But she decided to go to school anyway, though she was doing a terrible job at becoming a strong shinobi. A strong shinobi would be able to put up with this, she decided; but right now it was her only option. Kakashi wouldn't be back for another 4 days. That was, if he came back. But she decided she didn't want to think about that too much. Instead, she packed her little ocarina for motivation. Rina had prepared herself for it to be the worst day ever, but surprisingly, it was that very day when she found friends.

More than any of the others, there was a boy with honey-colored skin that tormented her mercilessly. He and his friend were the only two people at the Academy who were older than Rina. He would instigate the vast majority of the ridiculing, poking and prodding at her with various objects on his desk until she would eventually let out a squeak of surprise or sometimes pain which usually landed her in trouble.

At the time, the boy's best friend had been Genma, who would usually be the first follower that backed him up. The first follower was always precious to a lone nut, and the blonde had always shown Genma a surprising amount of kindness. This was the only thing that convinced Rina that the blonde was not a sadist; unlike Tobitake Tonbo, who had always enjoyed watching her get poked and prodded a little bit _too _much.

She had been immediately unsettled by Tonbo, but he did have incredibly long eyelashes (which made him look quite sweet-natured). He seemed nice enough to people, but she knew the look in his eyes all too well.

* * *

On one particular day, Rina had made it all the way to their afternoon break, which had seemed to bother the boy with honey-colored skin. At break-time, he promptly found her, his companion (who had enjoyed chewing on sticks and twigs before he was even allowed to have a senbon) close behind.

"What are you doing here?" he asked Rina in a falsely-sweet voice, knowing she wouldn't speak to him.

He proceeded to call her nasty names, each of them ending with the taunt that she was 'weak'. That had been a mistake, partly because she knew that she was in fact, weak. She was so sick of being lonely and terrified, especially of a boy who was younger than her. Why did he torment her _all _the damn time? What had she ever done to him? Was her being here just that awful that she deserved to get picked on simply for showing up? She thought that might be true, but she couldn't handle it if it was. So Rina's reaction was to lunge at him, screaming, as she tried to attack him, though with only her bare fists.

Unfortunately, (though he may have deserved it) the honey-colored boy did not get punched and instead threw Rina to the ground, screaming incoherent things, no doubt a little startled by her sudden outburst. Rina got back up and charged at Genma, who was caught entirely off guard. She reached up and yanked the stick from the smaller boy's mouth, before she felt a sharp pain on her left eye as the other boy landed a crude punch.

Rina's hand instinctively went to her eye and she bit the insides of her mouth to keep from protesting in pain. His technique was awful, but she had never been punched before (having missed taijutsu training every day this week). Although the pain from her eye was making her see spots, she waved the stick tauntingly in her freehand while slowly backing away.

"Let's get away from this freak," declared the boy, grabbing Genma's wrist and pulling him along. He looked shocked by the loss of his stick, but followed his friend reluctantly.

Rina went to sit against the nearest tree, taking deep breaths to calm herself, still clutching the stick as if it was a trophy of victory. And somehow it was, no matter how small and insignificant it was.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed until a small, bright-eyed boy showed up with an ice pack; she hadn't even noticed he was there until he had pressed the icepack onto her face.

"Here, this will help bring down the swelling."

Rina yelped in surprise, flailing again. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," the boy with the brown ponytail said sheepishly. Rina looked him over and gulped, a little nervous. This was the first time someone her age (well, sort of) had been remotely kind to her.

Still a little unsure, she took the icepack from the child's grip so she could move his arm away from her face.

"My name is Iruka," the boy grinned at her. "What about yours?"

Rina latched eagerly onto the display of emotion; something she had badly missed as Kakashi was usually rather reserved and formal all the time. "Um, thank you. My name can be whatever you want it to be," she rasped awkwardly, her voice hoarse from lack of use. He seemed nice enough, maybe it would be alright if she spoke to him.

Iruka's eyes widened. "You can talk!" he actually gasped.

Rina looked over and nodded quietly.

"I've always been able to talk. People just aren't worth talking to." She shrugged darkly.

"Well you talked to me…do you want to play a game or something?" Iruka asked sheepishly.

"I want to play a game!" A purple haired girl suddenly swung down from the trees.

Rina jumped.

"Anko! It's not nice to scare people like that!" Iruka chided half-heartedly. Though he was older, Anko's bold personality made him nervous.

"No, it's alright, I'm easily scared," Rina assured him, looking the girl over. Sure, she knew Anko. The purple-haired kunoichi was loud and bossy, and she liked to play rough like the boys. Though often brash, Rina admired the much younger ninja for her outspoken confidence.

"You shouldn't let them walk all over you like that," Anko commented, swinging back and forth on the tree branch, ignoring the older boy's admonition. For once, she and Iruka were in absolute agreement.

"What am I supposed to do about it?" Iruka and Anko's words made her feel weaker than ever.

At that moment, a white haired boy named Mizuki ran up, asking if Iruka wanted to play. Iruka nodded eagerly and started making his way out to the playground. Halfway there, he paused and motioned for Rina to follow, but she shook her head. She was too old for any of their games, but it was nice to know that not everyone hated her.

She had thought Anko had forgotten her question until she heard "Just act like you're not afraid of anything!" Rina broke out into a grin, because that was the most brilliant thing she had ever heard, and it came from a 6 year-old child.


	6. Hatred of Tears

**AN: Sorry this took so long to get up, hopefully future chapters will be quicker. KakashixRin.**

-Pre-Shippuden Naruto-

Kakashi made his way lazily into the Jonin lounge. Rather unusually for lunch hour, it was empty. Kakashi sat on the couch, looked around briefly, then picked up one of the couch throw pillows. They were grey, but the fabric was cut into thirds with Xs of black thread running all the way around the pillow. No one knew where they had come from, other than that someone had "mysteriously donated" them three years ago.

The silver-haired jonin sighed, his fingers languorously plucking some stray black threads at the edges. Had it already been three years?

He just hadn't been able to stand having them in the house anymore, yet somehow he couldn't bring himself to throw them away either so for the most part he kept them out of sight, out of mind. But in those rare moments when no one was in the Jonin lounge, he couldn't help but hold them a little too closely while reading his book.

13 Years Earlier

Kakashi perched himself on the window sill, his face black and his mood sour. He had just arrived back from a mission that had been far from sunshine and rainbows, and was on his way to turn in his very first mission report (with the ever responsible Rin as supervisor). Trudging into the Sandaime's office, he had only been half-surprised to see the elders sitting in the old cushioned chairs in the corner of his office space.

Giving them his best nonchalant stare, Kakashi coolly answered every question and instigation they threw at him, while silently imagining his kunai stabbing their horrible, ugly old faces with every patronizing word they uttered. Yet the questions went on and on, longer and longer; prying deeper and deeper into memories he had pushed into the recesses of his mind and had no intention of dredging up. It was too painful.

Finally, Sarutobi held up a hand. "Enough."

Kakashi arched an eyebrow. Evidently, the Hokage was adamant that it wasn't worth the time and resources needed to interrogate him. Koharu and Homura started to object, but the Hokage quickly silenced them. Nodding to the young jonin on the way out, the old man paid him an apologetic look but Kakashi was more delighted in the fact that the elders were left in a huff over their loss.

Looking around the house, he noted that the studio apartment looked mostly the same, barring the fruit peels that had been stitched in methodical Xs in the trash cans, along with his living room throw pillows, undoubtedly done by Rina.

He found his forced companion asleep in his bed, top sheet furled around her body. It was the kind of thing Kakashi would do in her situation, but it seemed nothing like the Rina he knew. She was shivering, but had kicked off his top blanket, and she looked particularly fragile from here. In contrast, the healing black eye she was sporting told him an entirely different story. But what did he care? Kakashi flopped onto his bed, disregarding his stray child's presence. It was his bed, and he would sleep in it if he damn well pleased.

* * *

Kakashi awoke to the feeling of someone looming over him, and was quick to open his eyes just enough that he could see without alerting a potential enemy to his conscious state. From this he could see a slender neck with pale skin, dotted with a spatter of peach freckles. _Rina should be grateful that I recognize those freckles. _

Opening his eyes all the way, Rina was quick to look apologetic by shifting her gaze away, bowing her head, and allowing her lips to slide into a pouty frown. He pulled his hands out from underneath the blankets to sign to her. Despite the fact that this required thought at some ridiculously early hour, it was better than risking his voice cracking.

_'What are you doing?' _Actually, that question was only one sign- and it happened to be one of the field hand signals used on missions (which Rina knew without Kakashi teaching her, another peculiar thing about the child). One would be surprised how often it was employed on the field.

"_Just making sure you were breathing," _a voice scratchy with sleep spoke along with hand signs. In his hypnopompic state, Kakashi hadn't registered the significance of the moment.

* * *

The next morning Rina was gone, but his laundry was washed and hung up to dry and the room was more humid than normal, signaling that Rina had probably bathed. Kakashi decided that he wasn't going to get overly concerned with Rina's location and instead took a bath, dressed, and was going to make himself some morning tea (something he was good at) when there was a knock at the door.

Rin stood before him, hands held delicately in the middle of her body, grasping a small basket covered with a thick blanket. "I was wondering if you wanted to have lunch? I made bento."

She was smiling, but Kakashi knew the warning signs: the red eyes, the thick voice and the trembling hands. He gulped. He looked back a little desperately for Rina, hoping that whatever maternal instinct which had assisted him with breakfast last week could assist him with the impending threat of tears. But to his dismay, Rina was nowhere to be found and likely would not be back for the rest of the day.

In a desperate effort to prevent her from crying, Kakashi quickly replied, "Yeah, sure. Here, let me take that."

Thankfully, his brown-haired teammate only smiled gratefully at him. "That's great! Do you mind if we go out to the back hills?"

He inwardly sighed. He really didn't want to spend time with Rin, in fact he had been positively going out of his way to avoid her since the incident at Kannabbi Bridge. Whenever he looked at her as anything other than just another shinobi, his chest ached. The more he thought about her, the more a rage bubbled inside him, but then suddenly dissipated when he thought of the way she had hesitated to leave Obito. The more he thought the more he felt empty and unsatisfied.

But she had obviously planned a picnic for the two of them, where the hell else were they going to go? His first instinct was to snap a curt refusal but he reminded himself that just a few minutes ago she had been on the verge of _sobbing, _so he swallowed it and tried to avoid any cutting remarks for the time being.

"Of course not," Kakashi grabbed a thick scarf for the wintry spell that had seemed to befallen Konoha lately before he followed Rin to the back hills. A couple of years ago there had been a battle here (back when the war was devastatingly close to home) and so the back hills were mostly clear and filled with comfortably short and vibrantly green (fertilized from sources he refused to think about) grass.

Rin made bento all the time for the team during their training because Kushina was not a very good cook, Kakashi had no one to feed him and Obito would have whined about favoritism if she had stopped there. Of course, now that Obito was gone it felt wrong to be here, having his lunch without him.

Kakashi poked the lumpy rice moodily.

"Are you okay?"

He looked up to see Rin watching him.

"Why would you ask that?" Kakashi replied, irritation filtering into his voice although it was only a fraction of what he really felt.

The brown-haired kunoichi looked thoughtful. "So I could hear you say that," she commented.

Kakashi scowled. He had been tricked into somewhat revealing his emotions, and he felt strangely grateful to the kunoichi that knew him better than she should have.

"Why are you so angry with me?" she asked.

"Why shouldn't I be? It may have been my fault Obito died, but you betrayed him!"

"What?" she gasped.

He couldn't stand it anymore. All the mingled guilt, annoyance and frustration of the past few days came bursting out of him in a torrent of anger. "You just had to tell me you loved me right after we left him behind didn't you? He loved you more than anything, and you threw away his feelings like yesterday's trash. What am I supposed to say Rin? _I don't love you._"

A shocked silence reigned.

The young jonin breathed heavily. Kakashi had always been an unwilling audience to much of Obito's lovesick mooning over Rin despite the two of them being rivals, a fact which Minato had always found undeniably amusing.

_"I got her chocolates for White Day. I bet you didn't get her anything,"_

_"Do you think Rin will like my new goggles? I think they're super cool."_

_"Rin deserves better than a jerk like you. I'm going to beat you and prove to her that I'm the better man!" _

"I just want you to understand."

A small sniff to his right jerked Kakashi back to reality, as he watched a tear roll down Rin's cheek. He shifted uncomfortably. Kakashi hated tears more than anything, because they were stupidly powerful. Somehow, the mere sight of water leaking from someone's eyes had the profound ability to stop even his enraged self from continuing his ranting.

"I'm sorry," Kakashi muttered, his anger abating as quickly as it had arisen.

"Don't be," she said quietly. "I didn't know that I had hurt you like that-"

"You didn't hurt me..."

"I didn't know I disrespected Obito like that," Rin quickly rephrased for him. "I just thought that we weren't going to make it back, and…" her cheeks became a bright scarlet again.

"I didn't want to have any regrets like I know Obito must have had..." she finished, half-whispering.

Looking down at his half-eaten bento, Kakashi suddenly felt the vague sense of hunger he had been nursing shrivel up to be replaced with a deadening hollow in his stomach.

Next to him, Rin fidgeted and twisted her fingers round and round her apron skirt.

"Let's go back, I can walk you home," Kakashi muttered, folding up the box and placing it back into the basket.

They packed up and made the slow, cold walk back to Rin's apartment. While she was jiggling the keys into the lock, Kakashi averted his gaze before speaking. "I promised Obito I would take care of you. So, I'm here if you need anything, but-"

"I know," Rin cut him off, dragging his exposed eye back to look at her. She gave him a half-hearted smile, tears threatening to spill again. "It's alright- I'll get over you eventually, and one day I'll find someone even better, like Obito would've wanted."

Kakashi slowly tugged down his mask. The sensitive skin ached against the sudden wash of cold air, but he ignored it and slowly leaned in towards Rin.

Her eyes widened.

Slowly and deliberately, he pressed his lips briefly against hers- in apology.

Kakashi had few memories of his parents kissing- when they did, he usually remembered the chaste contact occurring only when the other had done something wrong. Like his father returning late from a mission and keeping his mother up late, night after night. But sometimes it was small, like when his mother had accidentally whacked Sakumo with a ladle and landed spicy noodle broth in his eye.

When Kakashi pulled away, Rin gave a hesitant nod; looking thoroughly (and even _attractively) _flustered with pink cheeks and dilated pupils.

He returned the nod and pulled his mask up again; a final act of intimacy that declared the end of their one-sided relationship.


	7. In Trouble

The whole village could talk about nothing else that day.  
Orochimaru had defected this morning.

Kakashi had always felt that there was something not quite right about the snake-loving shinobi; he always hissed instead of talking, he experimented until late at night in the ANBU labs and there was a malevolent gleam about his yellowish eyes that always gave Kakashi the creeps whenever he looked at him.

Orochimaru had been scary, but Kakashi had always reminded himself that he had still been a loyal shinobi of Konoha and thus, a nakama however much he may have disliked him.

Or so it had seemed.

Kakashi rubbed his good eye absently. What would a young, green shinobi like him know?

He wasn't part of the emergency ANBU Retrieval Squad that had been despatched to track down Orochimaru at all costs. He wasn't even on the intelligence squad, the group that was trying to understand everything they could about Orochimaru's experiments.

However, Kakashi was a nosy boy whose sensei had just offered him a position in ANBU. That did entitle him to some information, right?

Chief of ANBU Intelligence Rabbit hadn't exactly agreed with Kakashi, but that hadn't stopped him from snooping a little.

"Radiation," he repeated the word to himself. What did that even mean? Kakashi hadn't the slightest inkling, but it was a good thing he knew a trusted confidential informant.

* * *

"Rina," Kakashi perched on the window sill, "I applied for your alternative housing today, but don't get your hopes up, the housing system is at least two months behind."

Rina no longer flinched when he entered anymore, and simply gave a nod before slowly getting up to start dinner.

After the initial first weeks in which Rina had done nothing but sit around and look depressed she seemed to have decided on being the exact opposite. There were only two times in the few months they had lived together that she had moped about, this being one of them.

"You're upset," Kakashi commented while Rina shuffled some vegetables in the pan, dousing it with 'awesome sauce', a mixture of all their leftover sauces combined into one. Even this small comment was prying on his part, comparatively speaking. Normally he would have just made another pot of tea, which was their solution to the majority of problems.

"Orochimaru-senpai-" Rina started. Kakashi already knew that Orochimaru had been officially declared a missing-nin that morning. He also knew that Mitarashi Anko, a known friend of Rina, had disappeared with him.

"You're worried about Anko," Kakashi nodded, but that was the closest he could get to consoling her without lying. He had no idea what was going to happen to Anko, and it was rumored she went willingly.

"Well yes but…" Rina shook her head. "Nevermind," she bristled and started stirring the vegetables at a swifter speed. It took Kakashi several minutes to fully comprehend.

"You admired Orochimaru," Kakashi concluded.

"He was sciencey, you know?" Rina whispered. "It just makes me sad that now, everyone is going to be afraid of scientific advancement because the one man who was making any real progress turned out to be evil."

"I suppose you do appreciate the sciences," he had always thought of Orochimaru as having an oily personality. "You're also quite the troublemaker."

"And mentally bent, don't forget that one," Rina declared, somewhat prideful. Seeing as she was already rebounding from her previous slump, and that dinner was almost finished anyway, Kakashi decided his new vocabulary word could be brought up over dinner.

When they were settled down at their small coffee table Kakashi looked around his now paper-covered walls for anything that might have pertained to the word before he, technically speaking, leaked classified information to a potential spy. However, he found nothing in all the charts and graphs and text excerpts.

It hadn't started out this way, Rina had shyly asked him if she could put up one diagram about how to calculate the area of a cylinder on his wall in December, and he had said yes. Somehow his single 'yes' had turned into walls full of diagrams he didn't understand.

"So Rina," Kakashi started, waiting until she looked up at him. "Do you know anything about _radiation_?" He gave the word a sign as well, in case it was something that needed to be discussed silently. Rina lit up at the mention of the word her usually perfect table manners forgotten in order to retrieve her _Math and Sciences _textbook, which she dropped heavily on the table and began leafing through while still eating her vegetables with one hand.

"Radiation- officially ionizing radiation- is the excess energy or mass given off by unstable atoms."

Kakashi pursed his lips. "Is that all it says?"

"It also says that there is natural background radiation that comes from the sun and naturally radioactive things in the environment. That's it though; it's still a much unexplored topic." Unfortunately that didn't seem to have gotten him very far, essentially he still had no idea what it was.

* * *

Their relationship existed only in the fleeting moments between missions, and they settled into an easy domestic existence that tried to hide all the things which happened in the rest of their lives. However, in the past few weeks she'd refused certain requests. Nothing bad, but things like 'stop standing in the rain because it's cold' ("It's wonderful outside!"), or 'don't dance through the streets' ("Nope"), 'you're going to wake people up if you continue to play your ocarina' ("So?").

He'd always subconsciously determined her to be harmless, and it unnerved him that she suddenly began utilizing her power of free will even if it was only in small acts of rebellion. It wasn't until one particular day that he really thought of her as dangerous.

Kakashi had been injured, sustaining a gash in his leg which required stitches and a medical ninja's attention. The Konoha hospital was short on medical staff as usual, so Kakashi was receiving treatment from a flustered nurse who hardly had a clue as to how one went about manipulating chakra- let alone stitching skin- in an exam room that looked more like a converted janitorial closet.

There was muffled yelling, someone who was so angry that every word from their mouth may as well have been gibberish, followed by a familiar voice that made his heart skip a beat. The mere thought that someone he knew was injured made him a little nauseous now.

"How is it fair that he can treat me like dirt and I can't fight back?!" _Rina._

"I'M NOT GOING TO ARGUE ABOUT THIS WITH YOU ANYMORE!" snapped the first voice, quickly walking out of the room. Then Kakashi could no longer hear anything from the room.

_What was Rina doing in a hospital? Was she injured?_ Kakashi stood up instinctively, running down the hall to find her. He was just lucky the nurse had let go of the needle in the midst of his sudden reaction. Behind him, he could hear the protests of the severely confused woman, but found them sounding more distant than they really were. Pinpointing Rina's location, he skidded to a stop in what appeared to be an actual converted supply closet.

"Oh! Kakashi, hello, I was just having some group therapy with the tongue depressors. Their marriage is in turmoil," Rina held up the two wooden sticks grinning at him as though this was perfectly normal. Each of them had crude markered faces drawn with a thick black marker.

Looking over Rina she seemed fine, no symptoms of intoxication or injury, but she was in a hospital gown. In Konoha it was rare to actually wear the hospital gown. The room was rather secretive; having been converted inside while someone had taken special care not to alter the outer appearance of the room in any way.

"What are you here for?" Kakashi asked. Rina moved to the side, patting the free space beside her so he could sit there. Moving forward slowly Kakashi was now painfully aware of the needle embedded in his leg, but seated himself on the table. As soon as he had done that Rina dropped down into a kneeling position on the ground in front of him, the fabric of her gown drooping in front of her and making her appear much smaller than she was. That might have also been due to the tongue depressor dolls that laid abandoned beside him.

"I'm just here for an examination. The medic said he was giving some samples to the nurse, but I suspect that he's flirting- so it could be awhile," Kakashi had barely noticed, but Rina had started to pick up where the medical ninja left off in his suturing. He comforted himself both by the lack of pain, but also with the fact that (if fruit peels were any indication) she was quite good with medical sutures. "They're stripping me down, taking samples to put in my files. Making sure I don't have any curse marks, bugs, or extra organs. Like an armpit eyeball or secondary uterus," Rina sounded a tad too excited about the prospect of an 'armpit eyeball'.

"This is a weird little room isn't it? Very secretive, and it's almost fully stocked- they even have a defibrillator on the wall." Rina gave a gentle pull on the string, tied off the stitching, and then cut the remaining thread with a pair of scissors she stole from a nearby drawer. "All done, now I just need to wrap it and stuff. I'm pretty sure the medic caring for me is actually from a torture and interrogation squad, but nothing he's done has hurt, so that's alright." Rummaging around for some gauze and antibiotic ointment Rina quickly moved to put a wrap over the stitches. So it was an examination to determine if she was bugged, that explained her presence, but regardless even a T&I operative likely wouldn't have yelled at her.

"So how's school going?" Kakashi figured that was the best way to understand where the man's voice had come from without crossing any further boundaries than he already had. She was obviously in trouble for something, and he needed to keep an eye on her.

_"Hatake-san,"_ this was the address she used when she was afraid of saying something offensive. She had paused her wrapping of his leg to sign the words as well, which meant this was probably really bad.

"It's Kakashi, "he corrected, emotion suddenly flaring, though he forcibly held his voice at a monotone. He didn't appreciate being referred to by his last name, it was tainted.

_"There's a kid at school. He's pretty much the physical manifestation of the dirty looks I get when we go out in public. He called you a hero of war, and he keeps throwing training shuriken at me, and then he was poking me-!" _At this point Kakashi was struggling to keep up with both the words and the signs at the same time because of how quickly she was speaking. "_Sensei is upset because I have better aim. The boy's fine though. It was just a minor flesh wound, but now he keeps saying I'm crazy and maladjusted, says I need to be kept in a mental hospital."_

_"You stabbed a kid,"_ Kakashi concluded, logging in his mind that Rina was not only willing to get violent but also willing to do so in a way that was not usually accepted by society. Sparring for training, self-defense, and fighting during missions was perfectly acceptable. Stabbing your own classmate who is in all likelihood several years younger than you because he's a bully is generally considered bad form. _"Now what exactly does me being a 'hero of war' have to do with any of that?"_ It was no secret that his surname was fading away and being replaced with 'Sharingan Kakashi', in fact he liked it that way. He liked being well known, and he liked being a hero of war.

_"It's an oxymoron. There are no heroes or winners in war," _Kakashi didn't agree with it, but Rina said it so firmly that there was no point in arguing it.

He simply sighed and signed halfheartedly _'don't let it happen again.'_

"_Can we go home now?" _Rina asked suddenly

Figuring that their options were to wait until a nurse finally had the time to sign them out and scold them for their less-than-stellar hospital behavior, or to leave Kakashi nodded and stood when Rina moved away. They walked out of the room, Rina walking forward ahead of him and checking around the corners. They went out the back door, by the nursery, and Kakashi noted that Rina stared at the babies behind the glass.

As they exited the building Rina giggled suddenly. "I really am crazy and maladjusted aren't I?"

"You are not crazy, perhaps a bit mentally bent though," Kakashi shrugged. "And it's not like you are any more maladjusted than I am."

"So we're equally maladjusted, I guess that's comforting," Rina turned to give him a smile. He couldn't tell if she was joking or not at that moment, but Kakashi did find it comforting.


End file.
